Family & Community

I live in East Oxford. The residents’ association, DRARA (Divinity Road Area Residents’ Association) is very active. I was a member of the committee for five years, first as Secretary and then Chair. I stepped down in October 2015.

Through Low Carbon East Oxford I had 1.7kW of solar panels installed on my south-west facing roof in November 2010. The first year of operation generated about 28% of my electricity. By 2012 it had jumped to 37% – and has continued to rise, mainly because of reduced consumption. I am now part of a DECC-funded pilot project to see if storing renewable energy is feasible, using the Moixa ‘Maslow’ system.

My younger daughter Alice, graduated in Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2013. She won the Crawford Prize for the best result in Political Science in year 1 and the Harold Laski Scholarship for the best ‘first’ overall in her year. She is working at a school in London on the Teach First programme.

My older daughter Nadine, graduated from University College London in 2010 with a first class degree in English Literature and moved to Glasgow University. She is now living in Edinburgh and working for an NGO there. Amongst other things she has been working with asylum seekers and refugees. Here is an interview with her in the Scotsman in October 2012.

My youngest sister Claudia is a ceramicist. ‘The Pot Book’ which she co-authored with Edmund de Waal was published by Phaidon in October 2011. You can catch up on that and her current and recent exhibitions at her website. Her book ‘Subversive ceramics’ was published by Bloomsbury in January 2016.

The other artist in my immediate family was my dad’s cousin, Frank Martin (1921-2005). The family has launched a website about his life and a number of his works are for sale through the site.

The family has Irish connections through my mother, a Hegarty. The family come from Skibbereen, Co Cork where a local saying has it; ‘Everyone dies when their time is up, except the Hegarty’s who die when they want to.’ The family is notoriously long-lived and my mother Clare who died in October 2016 aged 94, was no exception.